Consumer demand for diversified television programming options has led to an increasing number of telecommunications (telecom) providers. These providers may have individual programming schedules where shows may be broadcast at different times and on different channels than the same television show broadcast by another provider. Multiple telecom providers may provide service for a given geographic area, and in some cases, the providers may offer a number of programming choices available to the consumer (e.g., different programming “packages”). While consumers may benefit from a wide range of programming options from a economical standpoint, the multitude of schedules that stem from this diversity sometimes makes finding a programming schedule a difficult and confusing. Of course, the most accurate programming schedule will correlate directly with the viewer's telecom provider, which may be a physical location where a telecommunications signal originates.
Online electronic programming guides (EPG's) are popular among television viewers, as they provide up-to-date programming information in an easy-to-use user interface that includes program times, channels, and oftentimes a brief summary of the content of the show. The guides can be used simply to visualize current programming, or in integrated software programs that allow a user to record shows that they select from the guide. EPG's may be offered by telecommunications providers (such as an online guide for Dish Network) as well as by independent sources such as TV Guide (www.tvguide.com).
Some online programming guides, especially those that are not directly related to a viewer's telecom service, use geographic identifiers to generate a list of programming schedules from telecom providers in a given geographic area. For example, an online guide may query a user for their zip-code, subsequently match a number of telecom providers corresponding to that geographic area, and present the user with a list of schedules from those providers for the user to select. However, with the growing number of telecom broadcasting stations and services, the user may be presented with so many schedules that they may not be able to pick the one that will correspond to the service they receive at their location. Also, different providers may offer services that overlap some geographic areas or portions of geographic areas, but not in others. In addition to the multitude of broadcasting companies, selecting a schedule becomes even more arduous when one takes into account the multiple programming packages that a company may provide. For example, a customer of a cable broadcasting company may be presented with multiple schedules corresponding to the packages that include movie channels such as HBO or Pay-Per-View. The issue of selecting the correct programming schedule becomes compounded if a user is not aware of the particular package to which they subscribe. Identifying a viewer's telecom programming schedule by querying them for information specific to their telecom provider may alleviate the difficulty of choosing the correct telecom programming schedule.
While many subscribers may know their telecom provider, such as by determining it from an invoice, the telecom programming schedule is oftentimes not a user-identifiable entity.